Climate and Environment

About the Bachelor of Arts and Science in Climate and Environment

The Bachelor of Arts and Science in Climate and Environment* serves students who seek an interdisciplinary education with a unique strength in both Environment and Climate. The field of Environment focuses on the physical and chemical composition, nature, and the societal relationship we maintain with our physical setting, while the field of Climate focuses on how the Earth’s energy balance affects our environment.

Why take it at StFX?

Climate and Environment at StFX is a natural fit. Here, students join an intimate, dynamic, and cohesive group of likeminded peers and scholars with whom they can grow intellectually. StFX is fortunate to house some premier scholars in the field of Climate and Environment.

Scholars in climate and environment are spread out across many departments on campus, from Economics to Chemistry to Philosophy, and as students complete the degree, they’ll have the opportunity to complete courses pertaining to Climate and Environment in those departments. These are professors who are active in their fields, but also have the time to help their students reach their utmost potential by engaging them inside and outside the classroom.

Opportunities to work closely with professors on cutting-edge research outside of the classroom, and to learn from both Masters’ and PhD students at StFX who are themselves emerging minds in the fields of climate and environment provide an unparalleled educational experience. Past graduates of similar programs at StFX have worked on research across the globe from Alberta to Antarctica as well as on projects that have a more local impact.

StFX has a history of engaging with the community within which it resides as well as engaging students in real-world problem solving. While enrolled in the BASc in Climate and Environment, students have ample opportunity to gain hands-on experience. They’ll have the opportunity to participate in practical service learning experiences coupled with critical reflection for credit.

Preparing you for a career

In their fourth year, students will take courses that explicitly prepare them to apply their classroom learning in a research or work environment. Students will identify and tackle a real and current climate or environment issues using the material they’ve learned over the last three years. Those experiences, coupled with the option to complete a Co-op Internship placement lasting between 12 and 16 months, means that students can start putting into practice what they learn in the classroom long before they graduate. They will move on to the next stage of their lives equipped with the skills, knowledge, and experience to confidently succeed.

Courses

The BASc in Climate and Environment will include mandatory core courses each semester, plus a mandatory lecture series. These courses are framed to provide students with essential skills and knowledge, which will equip them for success in upper-level courses in different disciplines. While some courses have mixed content, in general the core is equally weighted between science (101, 102, 202) and societal streams (201, 301, 302). The capstone courses (401, 402) are faculty neutral.

The program offers students a wide breadth of choice, but also includes a number of restrictions to ensure that students can best self-determine niches of interest and develop personalized pathways that meet their academic interests.

Co-op Internship Placement

Students in the BASc in Climate and Environment program will have the option of completing a Co-op internship placement.

BASc - Climate concentration

This concentration will be of interest to students who want to learn about how the climate works, how we measure climate, and issues surrounding climate. Courses in this concentration will help students develop fundamental scientific methodology in Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry, as well the social and political dynamics that inform societal responses to climate. This will help them appreciate the complex behaviour of Earth's atmosphere and climate system, as well as its effects.

BASc – Environment concentration

This concentration will attract students who have an interest in the composition of the environment and the issues it currently faces. Students may consider how population growth, consumption, the growth of technology, and other factors affect the chemical and physical composition of our environment, as well as how we track these changes in our environment. Students can take courses that focus on resource management, chemical contaminants, earth processes, and other related topics.